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Full-Text Articles in Education

Through Critique And Beyond: Speculative Fiction As A Tool Of Critical Pedagogy, Syd Thorne Dec 2021

Through Critique And Beyond: Speculative Fiction As A Tool Of Critical Pedagogy, Syd Thorne

Master's Projects and Capstones

This field projects centers around the issue of hopelessness among teachers and students and examines the genre of speculative fiction as a potential tool for cultivating critical hope in the classroom and as an asset to critical pedagogy. Utopian pedagogy and critical pedagogy make up the theoretical framework of this research and project development. The research explores the use of speculative fiction in three areas: activism and identity, student engagement, and utopian performance. The review of the literature demonstrates that the use of speculative fiction in the classroom has the potential to engage students in conversations about social justice and …


Biodiversity Monitoring And Volunteer Motivations: A Case Study On The Imagined Communities Of Citizen Scientists In Meinung, Taiwan, Serena May Calcagno May 2021

Biodiversity Monitoring And Volunteer Motivations: A Case Study On The Imagined Communities Of Citizen Scientists In Meinung, Taiwan, Serena May Calcagno

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Asia Pacific’s biodiversity is under threat. One significant step that can improve conservation is gathering data on what species exist in different areas over time, which can provide insight into ecosystem health. This is especially important in biodiversity hotspots, where high levels of endemism and anthropogenic risk overlap. Though it is one of the few places in the Pacific not classified as a biodiversity hotspot, Taiwan has an unusually high saturation in terms of biodiversity data points. Investigating the motives of biodiversity monitoring volunteerism is already a topic of growing scholarly interest, but relatively few studies have focused on …


The Role Of Aesthetics In Classroom Design: Implications For Engagement And Equity, Giuliana Barraza May 2021

The Role Of Aesthetics In Classroom Design: Implications For Engagement And Equity, Giuliana Barraza

Master's Theses

The desire for achieving greater equity in education has been a prevalent topic of research, with many studies indicating that the current education system in this country is designed in a way that exacerbates initial inequities and has a negative impact on student motivation and engagement (EOCD, 2012). While existing scholarship mostly discusses equity and engagement through the lens of curriculum and instruction, the power of physical classroom environments and aesthetic elements present in those environments is less explored. With student populations becoming more diverse, there is a greater need for new tools for teachers to utilize in pursuit of …


Mapping Out Our Space In Stories: A High School Curriculum For A Social Justice Tour Of San Francisco, Elena Ramírez Robles May 2021

Mapping Out Our Space In Stories: A High School Curriculum For A Social Justice Tour Of San Francisco, Elena Ramírez Robles

Master's Projects and Capstones

How do youth engage with the spaces around them? In what ways might students connect their personal, lived knowledge to the politics and intricacies of space? The manners in which schools approach outside-of-school learning includes non-critical Place-Based Learning and field trips as optional material; however, doing so breaks the powerful relationship waiting to be explored between Critical Geography and Critical Education. This field project uses Henri Lefebvre’s concepts of The Production of Space and Rhythmanalysis as foundations to argue for the implementation of Critical Geography into high school curricula, and offers a 9-week high school curriculum to create a student-led …


Raising Awareness Of Bilingual Education: A Website And Resource For Immigrant Parents, Lesi Wang May 2021

Raising Awareness Of Bilingual Education: A Website And Resource For Immigrant Parents, Lesi Wang

Master's Projects and Capstones

Under the influence of English Only Movement (Macedo, 2000), bilingual education has been neglected for 18 years in California from Proposition 227 in 1998 to Proposition 58 in 2016. This leads to a result that many immigrant parents were not aware of the importance of bilingual education and have passive attitudes and perceptions towards bilingual education. For example, some immigrant parents think that English is more important than their home language, or that learning their home language will significantly hinder their children’s English acquisition. Yet, according to the three-generation shift suggested by Baker and Wright (2017), immigrant families will often …


The Environmental Mandate Of Heaven: Confucian Global Governance And Environmentalism In Chinese Policies, Wanchu Changliao May 2021

The Environmental Mandate Of Heaven: Confucian Global Governance And Environmentalism In Chinese Policies, Wanchu Changliao

Master's Projects and Capstones

Environmental degradation is a contemporary issue that has gained a lot of attention in recent history for China. The developing country’s industrial revolution has led to unprecedented carbon emissions, and despite efforts to curb population growth, China’s expanding and aging population has presented the country with numerous challenges. In this essay, I examine China’s environmental issues and the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) policy decisions through the lens of Confucian role relations. Through this lens, and given the multitude of challenges China is facing, it may be argued that the PRC is acting out its role as the leader and …


A Decolonial Middle School Social Studies Curriculum: 19th Century U.S. Westward Colonization, Leah Chatterji May 2021

A Decolonial Middle School Social Studies Curriculum: 19th Century U.S. Westward Colonization, Leah Chatterji

Master's Projects and Capstones

Social Studies education throughout the United States sustains settler futurity, white supremacy, and coloniality, as it rarely engages with Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) hxstories and structural violence. For middle schoolers, this is especially troublesome as social justice pedagogies are minimal for this demographic. To shift this, this field project offers an 8th grade decolonial Social Studies curriculum on 19th century U.S. Westward colonization; this topic was intentionally chosen as it is an opportunity to disrupt settler epistemologies. It centers: Land; relationality; and collective liberation. It complements the California unit 8.8 standards, yet different grades, subjects, …


A Critical Feminist Case Study Of The Northern California Cherry Blossom Queen Program, Alison Kepola Nishiyama-Young Jan 2021

A Critical Feminist Case Study Of The Northern California Cherry Blossom Queen Program, Alison Kepola Nishiyama-Young

Doctoral Dissertations

Asian American women are chronically underrepresented in leadership positions in almost every sector including higher education, government, private, and non-profit (Youngberg et al., n.d.). Many researchers have suggested the need for more leadership development programs specifically designed to support the needs of Asian American women (Akutagawa, 2014; Canlas, 2016; Gee & Peck, 2015; Lin, 2007; Youngberg et al., n.d.). Though there are a number of leadership programs geared towards Asian Americans, there are very few that cater to Asian American women explicitly. Historically, cultural pageant programs in the Asian American community have played this role and one such program is …


Replanting A Wild Seed: Black Women School Leaders Subverting Ideological Lynching, Whitneé Louise Garrett-Walker Jan 2021

Replanting A Wild Seed: Black Women School Leaders Subverting Ideological Lynching, Whitneé Louise Garrett-Walker

Doctoral Dissertations

Much race-based educational research is focused on teachers interrupting systems ofoppression in their classrooms, through methods such as curriculum and instruction, and preparing students to engage in the world (Alston, 2012; Bertrand & Rodela, 2017; Carpenter & Diem, 2013; Gooden & Dantley, 2012; Furman, 2012). I intentionally focus my attention on school leadership because while all stakeholders are responsible for maintaining school culture, as school leaders it is our responsibility to create conditions where the work of enacting social justice is expected in our schools. There continues to be a gap in educational research that deeply examines this level of …


Women Who Lead: A Feminist Phenomenology Of Crisis Leadership In Higher Education, Ingrid Helene Mcvanner Jan 2021

Women Who Lead: A Feminist Phenomenology Of Crisis Leadership In Higher Education, Ingrid Helene Mcvanner

Doctoral Dissertations

The landscape of higher education is rife with crisis events, ranging from the global COVID-19 pandemic to natural disasters and institutional and industry-wide scandals; yet, most institutions of higher education are unprepared to tackle these crises as they arrive. As an industry, higher education is also largely dominated by men at its upper echelons, despite being a field that is predominantly staffed by women. Amidst the backdrop of the attention COVID-19 has brought to female world leaders and the quest for parity in higher education leadership positions, this study sought to explore the lived experiences of women leaders in higher …


Employment Discrimination: An Efficacy Study Of African American Inequities In The California Utility Sector, Victor Baker Jan 2021

Employment Discrimination: An Efficacy Study Of African American Inequities In The California Utility Sector, Victor Baker

Doctoral Dissertations

Employment Discrimination: An Efficacy Study of African American Inequities in the California Utility SectorThe economic legislation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was designed a vigorous tool of law to address employment discrimination of African Americans and remedy economic disparity that unfavored African Americans. The energy utility industry served as the first Supreme Court defendant and loser of a Title VII employment discrimination challenge by a Black workforce. As a result, energy utility companies have served as the face of resistance to fair employment for African Americans despite the liberal popularity of diversity management programs. Prior …


Engaging Feminism, Transforming Institutions: How Community Engagement Professionals Employ Critical Feminist Praxis To Re-Imagine And Re-Shape The Public Purpose Of Higher Education, Patricia Star Plaxton-Moore Jan 2021

Engaging Feminism, Transforming Institutions: How Community Engagement Professionals Employ Critical Feminist Praxis To Re-Imagine And Re-Shape The Public Purpose Of Higher Education, Patricia Star Plaxton-Moore

Doctoral Dissertations

Most higher education institutions have mission statements articulating a commitment to serve the public good, and venerate the broader historical project of higher education as a force that improves the lives of individuals and communities. However, the public purpose of higher education is perpetually embattled by intersecting forces of neoliberalism, positivism, and settler colonialism that emphasize priorities like generating revenue, chasing prestige, developing real estate, and connecting students with high paying careers. As our society continues to grapple with pervasive social and environmental injustices, it is imperative that we clarify and strengthen higher education’s civic role in shaping a more …